Data market is booming in India after smartphones went mainstream back in 2014. For operators, data has become the key revenue at a time when SMS and voice revenues are falling. Today we analyse broadband subscriber addition in India over the past one year to find growth rate for each operator.
Wireless broadband leads
As per TRAI, broadband is any type of internet which gives more than 512Kbps speeds. This makes 3G,4G and EVDO fall under wireless broadband. The latest report published has 82.22 million broadband users in India. But only 15.23 million are using wired broadband and the rest 66.99 million are wireless broadband users.
Growth rate of operator over past one year
Airtel has been closing gaps with BSNL with a impressive 69% year on growth and taking into account that above data is 2 months ago, Airtel may have already de-throne BSNL to become India's largest broadband provider. Vodafone leads with a whopping 200% growth and has increased its broadband base by 3 times from just 5 million a year ago to 15 million. In the coming months, we expect Vodafone to overtake both Airtel and BSNL.
Idea also has an impressive growth rate of 109% and could improve it position to be 3rd largest broadband provider by next year. BSNL growth rate is sadly low at just 13% even when it rules the wired broadband segment, it struggles to add new subscribers. Reliance registered negative growth partially due to stopped reporting subscribers with less than 1MB usage.
3G the key driver for wireless broadband growth
This impressive growth in broadband users is attributed to high growth in 3G data market. Airtel, Vodafone and Idea gained the maximum from their 3G service and 3G ICRA agreement. In the next upcoming spectrum auction, we expect Airtel, Vodafone and Idea would buy out most 3G spectrum to extend their service further.
It also worth to note that even with near pan-India 3G service, BSNL could not add significant users. Reliance with its pan India EVDO and 3G in 13 circles also failed to find new users.
Please let us know by comments your view on impressive wireless broadband growth of AVoId?
